The Family Group

Background information

1955, by Tony Rosenthal. 14'h x 5'w x 3'd. Parker Center.

The late 1940s and early 1950s was an era in which suspicion
and fear were exploited by self-serving politicians eager to seize
political power. Republican Congressman and later Senator Richard
Nixon and Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy promoted their
political careers with unsubstantiated claims they were uncovering
communist spies in government. Nixon's only triumph was putting
Alger Hiss in prison while McCarthy branded his name into an era
with smears and innuendos that destroyed the reputations and lives
of numerous Americans whose only crime was being liberal and
decent. Together, Nixon and McCarthy poisoned an age and made
anti-communism the prism through which narrow and terrified people
not only viewed politics, but how they viewed art. It was in this
charged atmosphere that The Family Group was commissioned, designed
and installed.

In 1952, Welton Becket & Company (now Ellerbe Becket, Inc),
the architects for what has been called since 1971, the Parker
Center, commissioned Tony Rosenthal to execute a sculptural piece
for the building's exterior. The architects selected the site on
the facade and determined the size of the sculpture, but left the
subject matter, material and design to Rosenthal. At the
suggestion of a police department employee, Rosenthal designed the
work to represent a policeman protecting a family. An early
version of the design was included in the plans for the entire
building when the City's Municipal Arts Commission approved the
project in September 1952.

During the following two years, Rosenthal prepared a series of
metal models that together reflect both continuity and change in
the design. All models depicted a policeman, represented by the
tallest figure, standing behind a family composed of a mother
holding a small child in her left arm and a boy standing to her
right. However, the initial curved lines of the composition became
increasingly angular, the natural proportions and realistic body
elements became increasingly abstract and the facial features were
ultimately eliminated. The head, Rosenthal said, was kept simple
"so it cannot be construed as belonging to any definite race or
creed in preference to another." However, he made the final design
less abstract than he would have preferred in order to get it
approved by the City's Municipal Arts Commission in July, 1954.

The Municipal Arts Commission's action was reported in the
local newspapers, complete with a photograph of Rosenthal's design.
And when it was, along came the city's conservative Councilmen
Harold Harby, Ernest Debbs, Don Allen and Robert Wilkinson, who
were all descendants of a thriving tradition of political hucksters
known for swindling the electorate by attacking the arts. "No
eyes, no nose, no ears, no G-U-T-S. Whoever designed this must
have a low opinion of the American Family" observed Councilman
Debbs. Councilman Allen proposed substituting a statue of Jack
Webb, the star of the popular Dragnet television series. And when
the sculpture was installed in January, 1955, shortly after the
building was completed, Harby proclaimed, with an echo of Franklin
Roosevelt, "This shameless, soulless, faceless, raceless
monstrosity will live in infamy" while councilman Wilkinson
suggested it be sent to Russia. Vigilante groups were invited to
steal the work, anti-Semites from the Christian Nationalists
picketed it, an effort was made to put its disposition on the
ballot, and a lawsuit was filed by conservative Republican State
Senator Jack Tenney to have it removed, claiming it was a public
nuisance. The Complaint described the work as "an ugly grouping of
angular, distorted and grotesque figures resembling man's crude,
prehistoric efforts to depict the human form, the great ape or some
long extinct half-animal or half-insect."

This cabal of political conservatives and anti-Semites,
however, quietly abandoned their efforts after prominent members of
the art community stood up and organized the Los Angeles Art
Committee to defend the work. Though The Family Group has
survived, the controversy surrounding it had a chilling effect on
public art design in Los Angeles. It was not until Aquarius (which
appropriately symbolized with its name that a new age had dawned)
was commissioned in 1969 for the Union Bank Plaza, that an abstract
work was installed in downtown Los Angeles.

Each of the four figures of The Family Group was fashioned
from heavy sheets of bronze. Rosenthal created a potted appearance
by using an oxy-actalyne torch to make puddles of metal on the
surface. The original gold color of the work turned to its present
black, Rosenthal believes, because of the acids he applied to the
surface during fabrication.

During installation, each figure of the 1000 pound sculpture
was first welded separately to supports on the building's terra
cotta wall, which was fabricated by the noted California terra
cotta manufacturer Gladding McBean. The base was then welded to
the figures.

The text has been provided courtesy of Michael Several, Los Angeles, September 1997.